Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory

✍ Scribed by Bruno Latour

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 312
• Series: Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies
• Edition: illustrated edition
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Reassembling the Social is a fundamental challenge from one of the world's leading social theorists to how we understand society and the 'social'. Bruno Latour's contention is that the word 'social' as used by Social Scientists has become laden with assumptions to the point where it has become a misnomer. When the adjective is applied to a phenomenon, it is used to indicate a stabilized state of affairs, a bundle of ties that in due course may be used to account for another phenomenon. Latour also finds the word used as if it described a type of material, in a comparable way to an adjective such as 'wooden' or 'steely'. Rather than simply indicating what is already assembled together, it is now used in a way that makes assumptions about the nature of what is assembled. It has become a word that designates two distinct things: a process of assembling: and a type of material, distinct from others. Latour shows why 'the social' cannot be thought of as a kind of material or domain, and disputes attempts to provide a 'social explanation' of other states of affairs. While these attempts have been productive (and probably necessary) in the past, the very success of the social sciences mean that they are largely no longer so. At the present stage it is no longer possible to inspect the precise constituents entering the social domain. Latour returns to the original meaning of 'the social' to redefine the notion and allow it to trace connections again. It will then be possible to resume the traditional goal of the social sciences, but using more refined tools. Drawing on his extensive work examining the 'assemblages' of nature, Latour finds it necessary to scrutinize thoroughly the exact content of what is assembled under the umbrella of Society. This approach, a 'sociology of associations' has become known as Actor-Network-Theory, and this book is an essential introduction both for those seeking to understand Actor-Network-Theory, or the ideas of one of its most influential proponents.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 10
Introduction: How to Resume the Task of Tracing Associations......Page 12
Part I: How to Deploy Controversies About the Social World......Page 30
Introduction to Part I: Learning to Feed off Controversies......Page 32
First Source of Uncertainty: No Group, Only Group Formation......Page 38
Second Source of Uncertainty: Action Is Overtaken......Page 54
Third Source of Uncertainty: Objects too Have Agency......Page 74
Fourth Source of Uncertainty: Matters of Fact vs. Matters of Concern......Page 98
Fifth Source of Uncertainty: Writing Down Risky Accounts......Page 132
On the Difficulty of Being an ANT: An Interlude in the Form of a Dialog......Page 152
Part II: How to Render Associations Traceable Again......Page 168
Introduction to Part II: Why is it so Difficult to Trace the Social?......Page 170
How to Keep the Social Flat......Page 176
First Move: Localizing the Global......Page 184
Second Move: Redistributing the Local......Page 202
Third Move: Connecting Sites......Page 230
Conclusion: From Society to Collective—Can the Social Be Reassembled?......Page 258
Bibliography......Page 274
A......Page 292
B......Page 294
C......Page 295
E......Page 297
G......Page 298
I......Page 299
L......Page 300
M......Page 301
P......Page 302
S......Page 303
T......Page 311
Y......Page 312

✦ Subjects

Социологические дисциплины;Первоисточники по социологии;Латур Бруно;